Yes, this posting is after the fact this week. I had a rather busy week, and with the unexpected laptop breakage, all original plans sort of flew out the window.
I'll just write up a brief set of thoughts regarding today's Sabbath School study, Lesson 1, For Such a Time As This: The Apostle Paul.
I'm not a Paul, and I'm pretty sure there aren't too many people who are very similar to Paul. Peter was not like Paul, and John definitely wouldn't be mistaken for Paul. There might be a few attributes, interests, and personality traits that I might liken to Paul, but as a whole, I'm not what anyone, even with a stretch of imagination, would call outgoing, bold, quick with words kind of person.
Christians -- leaders and churches -- I think have often hyped up, intentionally or not, the super-missionaries or the super-evangelists as patterns for the rest of us. While I believe it's useful to look upon exemplary persons in Christian service as role models from which to learn, to expect myself to be just like one of them would be heading straight for failure and disappointment.
The fact is, and I think this week's study guide does bring it out, we are all unique. We each have a different set of skills, talents, interests, background, place, and time that makes us most effective in performing service for God when we are who we are; i.e., who God designed us to be. Some of us were never meant to go door to door in a strange neighborhood. Rather, we simply befriend people around our daily lives. We bring them into our lives and into our homes. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who just have the gift of starting up conversations and relationships with nearly everyone. They have the ability to draw out, in just a few minutes of acquaintance, deep needs and hurts that the rest of us might takes years to do.
Missionary service and mission work: what is it? Is it mainly about preaching? Or is it more about living? I think that when we read the missionary activities of Paul, we often get a one-sided picture where all he seems to do is preach, talk, and write. I believe it is important to balance this side of Paul with the side where he simply took up residence in a city, then lived and worked among the people. Words of hope are meaningless unless one can show a life of hope.
Even prior to his conversion, Paul was a missionary. He had a desire to serve God. It was just that prior to conversion, he had wrong ideas about God and about what He wanted, and thus his missionary efforts were rather misdirected. When Paul encountered Jesus and had a paradigm shift (as the study guide puts it), that's when his desire and efforts came into line.
Even today, the first qualification for anyone to become a missionary is simply a desire to serve God. I'm sure there are many people who go out on mission work, short-term or long, without really having experienced conversion. But the Holy Spirit has impressed upon them and given them a desire to serve. From Paul's experience, it appears that God is able to work with that. A person's desire can grow into an experience with Jesus. For some, it is in doing that Jesus is experienced. When a person really encounters Jesus, it leads to a missionary becoming a truly effective missionary.
The one thing none of us should do is to wait until we obtain perfect knowledge and understanding before we decide to work in our God-appointed mission fields. If we do wait, we will be waiting forever. And that would be like the man given the single talent in Jesus' parable.
Be who you are. That is God's plan for your life.
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